To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the status of progress on work in relation to the abolition of the mandatory retirement age in the public service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. – Clare Daly T.D.

REPLY.

On foot of one of the recommendations of the Report of the Interdepartmental Group on Fuller Working Lives, my Department, with Public Service employers, was tasked to review the current statutory and operational considerations giving rise to barriers to extended participation in the public service workforce up to and including the current and planned age of entitlement to the Contributory State Pension.Read More

Tesco Ireland is the most profitable multinational retailer on the island of Ireland; generating more than €250 million in profit annually; buying up other companies for €4.3 billion and promising to pay out dividends to already wealthy shareholders. Against this retail giant are a small group of workers with 21 years of loyal service fighting to protect their incomes and their contracts of employment.

Tesco Ireland is attempting to change contracts of employment without agreement for 250 staff members employed before 1996. For the last 12 months they have intimidated and pressured those workers to leave the business and generally made their lives hell.

Why? Because, those workers have secure hour contracts, with relatively decent pay and conditions; this is the thanks you get for helping to build one of the most successful multinational retailers in the world, and it’s simply not good enough.Read More